Listener 22 May, 1999
Keywords: Growth & Innovation;
Even a good scientific theory experiences anomalies which it cannot explain. Resolving those aberrations eventually leads to a better theory. However ideologists prefer certainty to complexity and ignore inconsistencies. An article in the April 10 London Economist – the world’s top economics weekly and prominent upholder of “more market” – nicely illustrates the phenomenon.
Listener 8 May 1999
Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;
Michael Cullen and Helen Clark are fiscal conservatives. They think there is a practical constraint to the size of the government’s budget deficit: they may well prefer it to be in a surplus. While they may think, as sophisticate Keynesians, the size of the deficit should vary over the business cycle as a part of demand management, in the long run they see the internal deficit as constrained. However much of their Labour Party are not fiscal conservatives. In government, already evidently in opposition, Labour will face tensions because much of their caucus – even the cabinet – are not so committed to fiscal austerity.